The Telling by Julia Webb is a distinctive and acutely-observed collection of poems that unravel the intricacies at the heart of human relationships – an insistent, quietly fierce tour de force from this Forward Prize commended poet. Moving and dark, we uncover the things that go unspoken between people despite their closeness.

In turning her forensic focus on what makes us human, and in particular what it is that glues us together or causes us to come apart, Julia Webb’s poetry examines the wreckage of complex lives to understand where the fault lines and fractures lie. What are the stories that construct our families and relationships, and who gets to tell them? Can we trust the stories we inherit, and what happens when we recover the right to tell things for ourselves? These compelling, taut poems crackle with the electricity of the untold – of flawed humans and hurt, of daring and being, of reclaiming and persisting.